Our longest road trip started in 1981 September. I had lost my job in Ohio in April and had not been able to find any work so we decide to sell everything we could and move out west. My mother lived in Dallas and we decided to head that way to see if I could get a job in the big D. After selling off just about everything we had we bought a black 1964 Ford Van for 600.00 and a small trailer. Our youngest child Chris had been born that March so was still a baby. Our oldest child Scot had had surgery in February for a hot Appendix. I had spent almost 4 weeks working with the National Guard on the Floods in Ottawa that year also.
When we started the trip we had less than 100.00 for gas and food for all 6 of us. We filled up the tank and headed for Dallas after we notified my Mother that we wre on our way. We drove as close to straight through as possible and got to Dallas, stayed with my mother, she had a separate apartment in her hosue, so we used it. I got a job right away delivering phone books for the distirbution company and did that for about 2 weeks while I also checked out everywhere else that might be hiring. It was the second day we were there when Chris went into a seizure and we took him to the closest hosiptal.
The hospital gave him Valium and the seizure moved from one side to the other, a second dose of Valium put him in respiratory arrest wher he flat lined and we thought we had lost him for sure.
The Doctors and Nurses managed to bring him back and sent him to Children’s Hospital in Dallas. He spent the bext week in ICU. We would soon have to leave Mom’s place as she had the apartment rented to someone else so we moved to a campground with my first and only paycheck from the phone books. I got another job with a Security Company called Burns and worked at The Datsun Distribution Center in Denton for about 2 months while we serched for a better job and better place to live. We were not able to really find anything good in Dallas, lots of minimum wage or just above that but no really good jobs.
Also living in a tent in a KOA with 4 children may be a nice vacation but after a couple of months it can get real tough.
While, I was in High School I had sent in a coupon from amagazine to buy 1/2 acre in what was known as Deming Ranchettes in Deming NM, so we decide to follow the Interstate and head for Deming to check out my land and maybe start a new life. We found the land not far from the Florida Mountains and we stayed on it for a while camping out in our tent and gettin water from a well that one of the locals allowed us to use.
I finally was able to get a job in Silver City at Hillcrest hospital, we found a house to rent in Silver City and began the slow process of recovery, by now it was March of 1982, so it wasn’t planned that way but essentially we started this road trip in September of 1981 and it ended in March of 1982. I think that was the longest “road trip” I can remember.
